Call for Symposium Proposals

We invite proposals for symposia for the 96th ESA Annual Meeting. The meeting will be held August 7-12, 2011 in Austin, Texas at the Austin Convention Center.

Symposia are the scientific centerpiece of the meeting. They will be assigned premium meeting space at the Austin Convention Center and will serve as the cornerstone for assembly of the scientific program. Proposals addressing the meeting theme, “Earth Stewardship: Preserving and enhancing earth's life-support systems”are especially welcome, but any timely and coherent subject of broad interest will be considered.

Symposia are limited to half-day sessions (3.5 hours); full-day symposia will not be considered. This meeting will include 24 symposia. Individual talks in symposia range from 15 to 30 minutes in length at the discretion of the symposium organizer. Time devoted to synthesis, summary, and discussion is strongly encouraged.

All proposals will be peer-reviewed and ranked by reviewers selected by the ESA Program Chair. The Program Chair may accept or decline your proposal, or offer you the opportunity to present your work in an alternative forum (organized oral session, workshop, or special session) during the annual meeting.

Decisions and alternative offers will be made by December 16, 2010.

Symposium proposals will be assessed using the following criteria. Weighting of particular criteria may vary depending on the nature of proposals, but proposals should explicitly address these criteria, as appropriate.

Scientific strength: Symposia are the scientific centerpieces of the meeting, and should:

offer significant contributions to ecological understanding

present innovative or interdisciplinary approaches, including novel collaborations or syntheses across subdisciplines

provide examples of how ecological research benefited from attention to public policy concerns, outreach or educational activities

have broad enough appeal to generate large audiences (>250 people) at the meeting

Structure and organization: Symposia should be more explicitly integrated than other sessions, and should be structured to:

provide overall synthesis or overview; they should not be simply a set of related case studies

avoid taking a narrow perspective on the symposium topic; organizers should carefully avoid the appearance of biases toward their own perspectives

build a well-integrated whole; each talk should have clear relevance to the overall synthesis provided by the symposium

Integration: Proposals may receive higher priority if they are clearly linked to the meeting's overall theme, or if they offer particular value or insight in the context of other sessions proposed for this meeting or of symposia at recent ESA meetings.

Speakers: Invited speakers may be a mix of well-established scientists, rising stars, and newcomers, but each speaker should bring new contributions to the session, not simply reviews of previous work. Inclusion of experienced or particularly engaging speakers can strengthen a proposal, but new voices are also important. Proposals with a larger proportion of confirmed speakers will be favored.

All speakers will be required to submit an abstract by the February 24, 2011, abstract submission deadline. The Symposium organizer is responsible for assuring that all abstracts are received by this date.

B. Endorsements

Symposia can be endorsed by internal bodies within ESA such as sections, chapters, and committees. Non-ESA endorsements will not be considered. Endorsements by ESA groups will be considered in the review of proposals, particularly if they emphasize why the group finds merit (in terms of the evaluation criteria above) in the proposal. Each of these groups is allowed to provide a primary endorsement for only one proposal. If more than one proposal was considered for primary endorsement by a group, the endorsement should describe the process and rationale used to select the proposal being endorsed. To enhance interdisciplinary connections, groups may provide a secondary endorsement for up to two additional proposals. Groups may provide primary endorsements for a symposium jointly but are still limited to only one primary endorsement per group. Symposium proposers, in requesting endorsements, should make this policy clear. There is NO guarantee that a proposal endorsed by any group will be accepted.

Individuals preparing letters of endorsement must submit them directly to the proposal submission site and make it clear as to whether it is a primary or secondary endorsement. Symposia proposers are required to provide the name, email, and group association of the person providing the letter of endorsement when submitting a proposal. The person sending the letter will be sent an email with instructions on how to submit the letter.

C. Presentation Rules

In the interest of broadening participation, an individual is allowed to be an organizer (either a principal organizer or a co-organizer) for only one symposium.

Moderators for symposia may not serve as speakers in those symposia. A moderator may, however, be a speaker in another session.

Persons agreeing to present papers in symposia also should be aware that the one-paper-rule will be enforced. That is, anyone who is first author or presenter of a symposium paper cannot also be first author or presenter for another paper whether for a symposium, organized oral session, contributed oral session, or poster session. Organizers should make certain that speakers they recruit understand this rule and make no conflicting commitments.

Exceptions to the one-paper rule may be made for participants in special sessions or workshops and for plenary speakers. Also, an author may submit an abstract for a second presentation ONLY if the second abstract is directly related to ecology education, scientific outreach, the history of ecology, or the history of ESA. Historical topics are now exempted in recognition of the ESA's Centennial in 2015.

D. If Your Proposal Is Accepted

After symposia are accepted and the scheduling for the meeting is underway, cancellations and schedule changes are very disruptive to meeting planning. Hence, symposium organizers should obtain firm commitments from as many of their invited speakers as possible before submitting their proposal.

If a proposal is accepted, the organizer(s) must submit a final summary description of the symposium to the Program Coordinator no later than January 21, 2011. This summary will appear on the meeting website, should have a description written so as to stimulate interest and promote attendance by a general audience, and thus is different in focus from the longer description in the original proposal. This final summary must include a complete and current listing of organizers' names and their affiliations, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and email addresses; a 250 word description of the session; a single-sentence (up to 50 words) description of the session; and a final, confirmed speaker list.

It is the responsibility of the symposium organizers to see that each speaker submits an individual abstract of his/her talk through the Abstract Submission site by the February 24, 2011, deadline.

ESA is not able to provide any financial assistance, stipends, free registration, travel assistance, or paid lodging to symposium organizers or to individual symposium participants. Organizers are responsible for making this clear to the participants.

E. Application Format

All proposals MUST follow the format of the online submission form on the ESA meeting website. Incomplete and inaccurate information provided on these forms may result in the proposal not being accepted.

Note that the following information must be entered during proposal submission. A list is provided here to assist you in planning your submission. Also note that the web page format may differ slightly from the format listed here.

All proposals must include:

Title of symposium

Principal organizer (Name, institution or affiliation, email)

Co-organizers (Names, institutions or affiliations, email). Indicate which of the organizers will serve as moderator. The moderator may not serve as a speaker in the symposium.

Speakers (Names, affiliations, emails, and tentative titles or topic areas). Indicate which speakers are confirmed and which are tentative.

Description (< 400 words) and justification (<250 words) of the symposium: Background information, goals, objectives, importance, and interest to the membership of ESA. The description should focus on the theme and structure of the session (including anticipated sequence of speakers and topics), while the justification should focus on how the review criteria are met by the proposal and should not simply repeat the description. Keep in mind the evaluation criteria in preparing your description and justification.

When you submit your proposal on the website submission form, you will be notified of receipt by email to the address that you provide. If you do not receive such notification within 2 days of submitting your proposal, please contact Program Assistant Coordinator Jennifer Riem at jennifer@esa.org to confirm that your proposal was received. Organizers of accepted Symposium proposals will be notified by the end of February regarding the date and time for their sessions at the Annual Meeting. Organizers are responsible for notifying all participants in their symposium of the date, time, and place of the session.

F. Cancellation Policy

Late cancellations and failures to give scheduled presentations (no shows) are disruptive and leave costly gaps in the program that are distracting to all attendees.
Therefore, ESA has adopted the following cancellation policy and fee schedule (all values are in US dollars): ESA’s late cancellation and no show policy:

In all cases where cancellation is unavoidable, the author should notify Jennifer Riem by email as soon as possible.

The deadline to cancel without penalty is May 1, 2011. After May 1, 2011 authors are charged a late cancellation fee.

After May 15, 2011, authors are charged a late cancellation fee and banned from presenting at the 2012 conference.

Presenting authors who do not notify ESA of cancellation and fail to present at the scheduled time (no shows) are at risk for the late cancellation fee and a 2 year presentation ban (2012-2013).

The late cancellation fee is $60.00 US Dollars for oral presentations and $40.00 US Dollars for poster presentations.

Exceptions: Cancellation fees and penalties may be waived for extenuating circumstances. Consideration will be made on a case by case basis. Please include a brief reason for the cancellation if you would like us to consider waiving the applicable penalties.
Fees for cancellations will be processed within 4 weeks of notification. Fees for cancellations received after July 1 and all no shows will be processed after the Annual Meeting. Decisions regarding bans from future meetings will be made after the Annual Meeting.

G. Summary of Deadlines:

September 16, 2010: Deadline for proposal submission
December 16, 2010: Notification of acceptance sent out
January 20, 2011: Deadline to submit final revisions and confirmed speaker lists
February 17, 2011: Notification of date and time of symposia sent out
February 24, 2011: Deadline for speakers to submit abstracts for their talks (required)

H. Penalties and Fees for Cancellations/No-Shows

Late cancellations and failures to give scheduled presentations (no shows) are disruptive and leave costly gaps in the program that are distracting to all attendees.
Therefore, ESA has adopted the following cancellation policy and fee schedule (all values are in US dollars): ESA’s late cancellation and no show policy:

In all cases where cancellation is unavoidable, the author should notify Jennifer Riem by email as soon as possible.

The deadline to cancel without penalty is May 1, 2011. After May 1, 2011 authors are charged a late cancellation fee.

After May 15, 2011, authors are charged a late cancellation fee and banned from presenting at the 2012 conference.

Presenting authors who do not notify ESA of cancellation and fail to present at the scheduled time (no shows) are at risk for the late cancellation fee and a 2 year presentation ban (2012-2013).

The late cancellation fee is $60.00 US Dollars for oral presentations and $40.00 US Dollars for poster presentations.

Exceptions: Cancellation fees and penalties may be waived for extenuating circumstances. Consideration will be made on a case by case basis. Please include a brief reason for the cancellation if you would like us to consider waiving the applicable penalties.
Fees for cancellations will be processed within 4 weeks of notification. Fees for cancellations received after July 1 and all no shows will be processed after the Annual Meeting. Decisions regarding bans from future meetings will be made after the Annual Meeting.